


An Innocent Sleepover

by KrysKrossZee



Category: Gossip Girl (TV 2007)
Genre: F/M, Feels, Innocence, Post-Canon, Sexual Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 20:15:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29739291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KrysKrossZee/pseuds/KrysKrossZee
Summary: Jenny sends the night in Nate's suite at the Empire. Nate knows that he can't touch her but that doesn't mean that he doesn't he doesn't want to.
Relationships: Nate Archibald/Jenny Humphrey
Kudos: 6
Collections: Tropes and Fandoms 2021





	An Innocent Sleepover

**Author's Note:**

> Prompts used-
> 
> Tropes & Fandoms: I Didn't Mean To Turn You On

Nate's eyes scanned over the sleeping form of Jenny who had collapsed into his bed somewhere between three and four in the morning. He couldn't exactly be sure when she had got there or where she had come from but when his phone had lit up with her name earlier that night (or morning if you wanted to be technical about it) he hadn't found it in him to tell her no. She had needed someone and Nate found that he was pleased that she could come to him, especially after everything that had happened in the days when Gossip Girl had raged.

Nate sat next to her on the bed, wondering if he would cross the imaginary line that they had tried to reinstate after everything that had gone down between them if he lay down next to her. It wouldn't be the first time that they slept in the same bed but it would be the first time that they had slept in the same bed since Jenny had come back to New York after her exile to Hudson.

But in the end he reasoned that it was his bed and he should get to use it, and he knew that if she wasn't comfortable with him being there then she wouldn't have come to stay with him in the first place. It wasn't as if The Empire held fond memories for her, after all.

Nate lay down and closed his eyes. The next time that he opened them it was light outside and he realised that he must have fallen asleep. He rolled over to check on Kenny to find that she was no longer on the other side of the bed. A frown took over his features as he sat up and looked around.

Her silver dress was still on the back of the chair where she had left it the night before so he knew that she couldn't have gone far, but it still made him uneasy to know that she was walking around the penthouse without him. Chuck didn't live here anymore so it wasn't as if they had his sudden interruption to worry about - Chuck lived with Blair now.

Nate ran his fingers through his hair before he pushed himself up and out of his bed. He was glad to find that he was still wearing his boxers and even though his shirt was slightly open, it was at least still on which told him that he had stuck to his guns and he hadn't slept with her last night.

Nate liked to think that he wasn't like that. Jenny was his friend - and what's more was that he was the younger sister of one of his best friends - but he'd be lying if he said that he hadn't thought about it more than once before. Last night, however, the only thing that he had wanted to do was to be a good friend to Jenny.

The blonde had only been back in New York for a few short months and she didn't really have any friends, or at least none that he had ever been introduced to or seen her hanging around with. He couldn't help but be pleased that she had chosen to come to him when she needed a friend, even if the reasoning behind it did confuse him.

"Jenny?" He called out as he made his way through the penthouse suite towards the area that Chuck had called the kitchen when he had lived here, but Nate had since decided that that name didn't fit it well at all considering that they couldn't actually do any cooking there.

The girl was stood there, attempting to use the coffee machine that was sitting atop his kitchen counter, wearing nothing but one of his shirts. Nate watched her from the entryway, unable to stop himself from doing so. He would be lying to himself now if he tried to tell anyone that he there wasn't the thought that he could peel that shirt off of her and kiss her up against the kitchen counter.

"Oh. Hi Nate." Jenny flashed him a smile as she turned to face him, a cup of coffee held between her hands and he had to wonder if she was cold or if she just wanted caffeine to get her through the day.

"I thought you might have left already." Nate hummed, passing a comment as he had to ask himself why she hadn't left yet. Did her dad know where she was? Did Dan?

"No, not yet." She told him, stating the obvious when he could clearly see that she was still there in the middle of his suite. "I hope that's okay." She added quickly and Nate realised that he hadn't said anything for a hot minute and that was enough to make anyone that little bit paranoid.

"Of course it is." Nate said quickly, taking a step towards her and then deciding to pretend they he was just after a coffee of his own. He had no idea what time it was, but then that was one of the benefits of being your own boss - no-one could tell him off for being late to work. "You're welcome to come by whenever you want to." He told her with a smile over his shoulder.

"Thank you." Jenny's smile made him want to kiss it right off her face, but he knew that he shouldn't dare. They couldn't get involved again, not when things had ended so spectacularly badly last time, though he knew that the reason that things were completely different now. For a start he wasn't pining over another blonde anymore - in fact Serena was as far from her mind as she could be. She was back with Dan and he was firmly focused on his work.

But work was exactly why he couldn't act on the feelings that were making themselves known. He was meant to be focusing on his newspaper and it's online presence. Ever since he had posted the final chapter of Dan's novel (if you could even call it that when it just felt like it was tell all tale to Nate), things at the Spectator had been going well, especially now that Gossip Girl was officially closed for business and the Spectator was now the only source of any gossip about Manhattan's Elite.

That however came with its own problems, in that now everyone expected the Spectator to always be on that level. Dan had all but retired from writing - or at least his writing now didn't focus on those he had previously ripped into shreds with the posts he had published on his site. Nate knew that Dan had been writing, but he wasn't privy to know what that writing was.

The fact that Jenny was Dan's sister was the icing on the cake of the stress of his life, but he did his best to ignore all of that now. Not that that took long when he caught sight of Jenny's milk coloured legs which looked as if they could go on for miles. He was more than distracted by them and he found that he wished that his fingers were then on her skin, that he could wrap those legs around his waist and kiss her up against the counter.

"What?" Jenny asked, her head tilted to the side as she watched him and Nate knew that he must have looked a sorry sight, probably even as if he had taken ill in his attempt to keep himself under control to the best of his abilities.

"Nothing." He said as he decided to move past her to grab himself a drink - coffee just wasn't going to be strong enough to get him through today and while he would never have recommended to anyone that they should have a drink before work, he wasn't going to take his own advice today.

"That's an odd face to have over nothing." Jenny commented but when Nate turned back to tell her that some things were best left unsaid, he saw that she had already moved off into the seating area and picked up the TV remote.

Jenny was an enigma. Nate still couldn't understand how she could be so cavalier about being back in this suite, how she could just walk around the place, not as if she owned it but more as if that nothing had happened to her. He supposed that was the way that she wanted to deal with it, but he had seen what happened to people when they clammed up on many occasions and it had never once ended well.

But maybe Jenny was the exception to the rule. She had always been something special, he had known that since he had first met her, but for her to act this way just proved to him how special she was. He hoped that she was as strong as she was making herself out to be anyway.

Nate dropped onto the sofa beside her, a whiskey on the rocks in one hand and his other on the back of the sofa behind her.

"Why did you come here?" He found himself asking as he looked her up and down. He knew that he had asked her last night, but she hadn't really given him much of an answer except that she had needed a place to crash and that she was desperate.

"I needed somewhere this side of the bridge to stay." Jenny told him, her eyes fixing on here and a soft smile gracing her lips. "You're probably the only person in this city that I can trust."

Nate tried not to obsess about what that meant, especially when Jenny still had Eric and Lily on this side of the bridge, and yet neither of them had factored into the equation, but Nate had. He wanted to believe that meant that he meant something to Jenny, but he knew that he didn't at all have time to explore that, and he knew that she didn't either. She was almost always busy with schoolwork and when she wasn't, she was designing for herself.

He didn't know how to answer that one so he gave a short nod and took a swig of his drink before he gave a low hum. "I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy sharing my bed with you, but it wasn't exactly how I expected to spend my night, you know?"

Jenny blinked a couple of times before she gave him another smile, this time it was a little tentative, however. "I know, but I'm grateful. Seriously, Nate. I owe you one."

Nate tried to ignore the thought that he knew exactly how Jenny could make it up to him as he downed the rest of his drink. He couldn't risk doing anything rash now so he pushed himself to his feet, leaving his glass on the coffee table for housekeeping to collect later - one of the many benefits of living in a hotel was that he didn't ever really have to tidy up after himself. He glanced sideways at Jenny who was still sitting on the couch, her legs crossed at the ankles and a confused expression on her face.

Once again Nate was overwhelmed by the feeling that he wanted to kiss her and once again he grew annoyed at himself for thinking it. Jenny Humphrey was off limits, and he had to remind himself of that as he watched her. Did she know what she was doing? She'd manipulated situations before, practically learned all that she could from Blair and Dan, but was this one of the tunes that she knew exactly what buttons to press or was it complete coincidence that every single one of her movements and gestures was driving him crazy.

"I… I'm going to shower." He said slowly, wondering if she would take that as a hint that she needed to leave or if she would be content to continue to wait for him, even if Nate still had no idea what she was waiting for. All he knew now was that he needed to put a little distance between them before he ended up doing something that he would later regret.


End file.
